Daily Life in the Islamic State

The Caliphate runs theme parks, collects taxes and picks up the garbage

Many in the West think of the Islamic State as a loose collection of fighters — rabble who kill, loot and burn. But the...

Many in the West think of the Islamic State as a loose collection of fighters — rabble who kill, loot and burn. But the truth is more complex though no less terrifying. Islamic State actually governs the territory it takes and it’s not terrible at it. The militant group levies taxes, teaches children and organizes garbage pickup.

Some living under Islamic State’s rule feel the Caliphate is less corrupt than the governments it replaced. Its propaganda videos depict both the glorious violence of the jihad as well as the wonderful paradise of the Caliphate. Children ride Ferris wheels and eat cotton candy. According to Islamic State’s immigration campaign, life in the Caliphate is happy.

Today on War College, Kevin Sullivan, a senior correspondent at The Washington Post walks us through his five part series Life In the Islamic State. Sullivan and his team spent months interviewing men, women and children in and around the territory I.S. calls the Caliphate.

For some, particularly Sunni men, life in the state is happy. But the lives of both women and children can be both brutal and cheap. Sullivan tell us how some women find themselves “part of an institutionalized, near-assembly-line system to provide fighters with wives, sex and children.”

Sullivan breaks down the horrors of life in the Islamic State, where the tax-man carries a whip, schools brainwash children and women are little better than property.